Defining Lines
Defining Lines
An exhibition of new paintings by Stephen Lavis
John Clark
Charles Inge
Opens Saturday 21st September 2024
All paintings are available to purchase upon receipt of this catalogue.
Please call the gallery for any purchases ahead of the opening.
Defining Lines
As Summer draws to a close we are delighted to bring together a collection of new paintings by gallery artists Stephen Lavis, John Clark and Charles Inge.
The links between these three artists are many and varied, but their defining commonality is the importance placed upon the definition of line within their works. A thoughtful and scrutinised investigation into the final surface of their paintings, whilst producing very different outcomes, associates them with the same obsession.
In Stephen Lavis’s pared back abstract compositions, he uses the paint itself to form the crisp edges created upon his canvases. They are a masterclass in sharpness of line. As with many artists interested in mid century modernist abstraction, Lavis loves the physicality of the media that he uses in his work. When studying a piece by him a realisation dawns that his paintings initially present themselves as uncomplicated placements of shape and form but, upon further investigation, reveal how his use of material have simplified complex composition. This heightens his exceptional execution of colour, tone, contrast and placement whilst using oil paint, crayon and charcoal to lineate his forms. The result invariably causes the viewer to pause, slow down and stop, allowing their minds to absorb and their eyes to be led.
John Clark’s careful, considered and deliberate placement of subject in his paintings create deep and visceral emotion within the viewer. A closer study of his paintings not only reveal his unique ability to create unnatural polygon rendering of form, but also an obsessive attention to his presentation of line and edge. Acutely contemplated choices of minutely varying breadth of brush stroke showcase his enviable ability and offer an accomplished suggestion of reality.
Remarked by his tutor at Oxford University’s Ruskin School of Art as the most gifted painter he had ever encountered, Clark’s ongoing attention to the fine details of line and form within his paintings and sculpture mark him out as a truly original and accomplished contemporary artist of our time.
Charles Inge, who also graduated from The Ruskin, creates a tentative balance with his use of line in this new series of paintings for ‘Defining Lines’. Using terms from classical ballet movements as titles for these pieces, the theme that underlies his work is that of precious fragility.
Often, Inge’s paintings start with a freely gestural and almost unthinking approach when initially applying pigments to his canvas. Through the process of encouraging paint to crawl, drip and separate of its own accord, interest for the artist emerges and associations take hold. In this collection linkages are made between intriguing abstract motifs through confident and delicate lines which remind us of Calder’s dancing mobiles. Charles refers to them as ‘Dream Trees’. It is the lines that give some clue as to what we’re seeing, although the eventual intention is to be, and to remain, beautifully unknowable.
We invite you to pause and define your own personal relationship with these works this Autumn. All three artists have garnered an artistic freedom and confidence that comes as a direct result of their maturity and status, creating a dialogue between works that brim with uniqueness and integrity.
Emma Clegg September 2024
Stephen Lavis
Contained, Oil on Canvas, 51cm x 51cm, £1,600
Blue and Black, Oil on Canvas, 80cm x 60cm, £2,200
Contained III, Oil on Canvas, 40cm x 60cm, £1,500
Contained II, Oil on Canvas, 40cm x 60cm, £1,500
Blue Triangle Receding, Oil on Canvas, 51cm x 51cm, £1,600
Shaping Colour, Oil on Canvas, 102cm x 102cm, £3,600
& White Oil on Canvas 120cm x 84cm £3,400
Red
Plinth 05, Oil on Canvas, 102cm x 184cm, £6,000
Two Halves, Oil on Canvas, 60cm x 80cm, £2,200
Burnt Orange and White, Oil on Canvas, 84cm x 120cm, £3,400
Anvil III, Oil on Canvas, 61cm x 61cm, £1,800
Back To Back, Oil on Canvas, 61cm x 122cm, £3,000
Game Changer
Oil on Canvas
110cm x 150cm
£5,600
£5,000
Plinth 04
Oil on Canvas
132cm x 102cm
John Clark
Natural History
Oil on Canvas
127cm x 102cm
£6,200
£8,500
The Hunt Oil on Canvas
152cm x 101cm
When A Tree Falls, Oil on Canvas, 76cm x 102cm, £4,200
£4,000
Chit Chat Oil on Canvas
76cm x 122cm
£3,200
Hot Night
Oil on Canvas
61cm x 76cm
A Normal State of Affairs
61cm
£3,600
Oil on Linen
x 76cm
A Normal State of Affairs II
61cm
£3,600
Oil on Linen
x 76cm
Charles Inge
En Pointe
Mixed Media on Canvas
97cm x 60cm
£2,400
Fouette
Mixed Media on Canvas
97cm x 60cm
£2,400
Releve
Mixed Media on Canvas
97cm x 60cm
£2,400
Tendu
Mixed Media on Canvas
97cm x 60cm
£2,400
Allegro Mixed Media on Canvas 97cm x 60cm £2,400
Chasse
Mixed Media on Canvas
97cm x 60cm
£2,400
Mariinsky
Mixed Media on Canvas
97cm x 60cm
£2,400
Scala
Mixed Media on Canvas 97cm x 60cm
£2,400
Garnier
Mixed Media on Canvas
97cm x 60cm
£2,400
A. S. Rope
Thrown white stoneware vessels with a white wash on the exterior and a satin matt white glaze on the interior, £820
Travertine,
Toasted White, Thrown red stoneware vessels with a white wash on the exterior and a transparent glaze on the interior. £790
Art@TheStratfordGallery.co.uk
01386 335 229
www.TheStratfordGallery.co.uk
62 High Street, Broadway, Cotswolds, WR12 7DT
No part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed without written permission from The Stratford Gallery Ltd.
All images copyright The Stratford Gallery Ltd, September 2024
